Vegetable and Bean Biryani

---------- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.x [from The Grocery Consumer]

Title: Vegetable and Bean Biryani
Categories: main dish, rice, vegetarian
Yield: 4 servings

1 md aubergine; cubed (large is better, though)
1 pn salt and black pepper
4 tb vegetable oil or vegetable ghee
3/4 ts poppy seeds
1 ts mustard seeds
1 pn cayenne
1/4 ts turmeric
3/4 ts garam masala
1/4 ts ground coriander
1 red pepper; seeded and sliced
3 oz butter beans; cooked
2 tomatoes; skinned, seeded & chopped
8 oz long grained brown rice;
-cooked with saffron (??? expensive or what???)
1 oz toasted pine nuts
1 oz raisins
1 coriander sprig for garnish*

Place the aubergine cubes in a colander, sprinkle with salt and leave for
30 minutes. Rinse the cubes and dry.
Heat the oil or ghee in a large pan. Add the poppy and mustard seeds and
cook for 2 minutes, stirring.
Add the cayenne pepper, turmeric, garam masala, coriander, aubergine, red
pepper, beans, tomatoes and salt and pepper. Cover and cook for about 10
minutes.
Layer the rice and vegetable mixture in an ovenproof dish. Cover and cook
in a preheated moderate oven (180~C, 350~F, Gas Mark 4) for 30 minutes.
To serve:

Sprinkle with toasted pine nuts and raisins. Garnish with a coriander
sprig and serve hot.

* I've never used sprig of coriander - can't stand it unless it's ground
coriander, from a packet! It's called cilantro in the US, isn't it?

This recipe from Carole Bowen's book "The Vegetarian Cookbook", I think.

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